Petr Cech feeling pressure to end on high

Petr Cech admits Chelsea’s players are struggling to deal with the pressure of salvaging their season by finishing in the top four and winning the Europa League.

Chelsea were controversially denied their first League win over Liverpool since 2010 when Luis Suarez headed in an equaliser in the seventh minute of injury-time.

The result means Chelsea are just one point above fifth-placed Tottenham with five games to go but, unlike their rivals, they have the added distraction of a Europa League semi-final.

Cech said: “We are in a position where we fight for everything. We have a lot of pressure playing in the Europa League because we obviously want to win it. Every League game we are in the fight for the top four places and it’s very tight there.”

Chelsea take on Basle in their Europa League semi-final first leg on Thursday and Cech (right) says it is hard for the squad, who have already played 61 games this term, to get a break from the strain.

He said: “We are under pressure in every game, so you need to find the time to relax. We try to do so, step by step.

“We had a disappointing end to this game [Liverpool] but we have a massive game on Thursday so we need to forget about this one and concentrate on the next.

“This [Liverpool] is a difficult game to come and play and you have to say the point is better than nothing. But we are disappointed because we could have had three.”

Cech and Juan Mata were mystified by referee Kevin Friend’s decision to award six minutes of injury time. To make matters worse, Suarez’s header came 31 seconds after the allotted time had run out.

“It’s unusual to have six minutes,” said Cech. “I have been a Chelsea player since 2004 and I have never had six minutes in my favour when I was losing.

“You look at this and say ‘why does this happen when I play away?’ This is the referee’s choice. But we conceded in the last second and we have to do better next time.”

Mata said: “The game should have been finished. Something important should have happened for it to be six minutes but it didn’t.”